Liberia: Liberty Party calls for halt to announcement of provisional results

Liberia: Liberty Party calls for halt to announcement of provisional results

(APA 10/12/17)

The opposition Liberty Party of Counselor Charles Walker Brumskine has on Thursday alarmed that the October 10 presidential election was fraught with fraud and irregularities.

APA-Monrovia (Liberia) - The opposition Liberty Party of Counselor Charles Walker Brumskine has on Thursday alarmed that the October 10 presidential election was fraught with fraud and irregularities.

The party has therefore called on the election outfit, National Elections Commission to suspend its planned announcement of provisional results today until it presents its findings to the commission.

"If NEC does not cooperate with our request, we will take the appropriate legal action," Liberty Party National Chairman, Benjamin Sanvee, said.

The Alternative National Congress (ANC) of Alexander Cummings and George Weah's Coalition for Democratic Change have also expressed similar concerns of electoral irregularities.

Cummings called on the NEC to address issues concerning missing and incomplete presidential ballot books in Montserrado County, receiving presidential voting ballots after 3:00 P.M in Sinoe and Grand Gedeh Counties and voters with valid voter registration cards being turned away because of umerous reasons including name not being on the voters' role in Montserrado, Bong, Grand Gedeh, Margibi, Sinoe and Grand Bassa Counties.

Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) National Chairman, Nathaniel McGill, who also cited similar incidents, said he is of the opinion that poll workers were not either properly trained to handle the
election, or their failure to handle the election was a deliberate attempt on their part tto sabotage the process.

Addressing a press conference at the NEC headquarters in Monrovia Wednesday, NEC Chairman Counselor Jerome Korkoya admitted that the voting exercise was fraught with challenges, including the late opening of certain polling stations and several voters' names missing on voters' lists at several polling stations.

He also cited an incident at a precinct in district #4 in Nimba County. He explained that even though voting materials for four precincts were delivered, only three polling places were set up. He said following the disruption of the voting process at the precinct allegedly incited by a representative candidate for the district, the voting was compromised, causing the NEC to launch an investigation and quarantine the voting materials. He said voting will be rescheduled at this precinct.

Counselor Korkoya said these incidents caused problems for several voters. "But these have not led to any major obstacles, and voters still voted according to the law," Counselor Korkoya said.

In apparent response to the Liberty Party's threat to seek legal action against the election outfit should it go ahead to announce the results, the NEC Chairman said: "There is absolutely no excuse for hindering Liberians from exercising their democratic rights. We call on all LP partisans to remain calm and peaceful as we work to resolve these issues".